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Brag and Boast and Tell All About It!

I attended the NY Business Expo last week and while meandering from booth to booth, I started a conversation with two other professional women who were there to see the offerings.

As usual, during conversations in a professional setting, the conversation got around to what each of us does. When I asked one of the women what she is involved in, she said a few words about herself and what she didâ€¦and then her colleague jumped in and offered a whole host of accomplishment and achievements of this woman and told me about her credentials and successes.

Having been involved in the womenâ€™s movement online since the early days, and as the Chapter Leader of the NYC Webgrrls having hosted numerous networking meetings and events, where professional women come together to share who they are and what they do, this was not the first time running into a situation where women either don’t or donâ€™t know how to talk about what they do, who they are, and promote themselves.

Most women I speak with say that they feel uncomfortable talking about themselves and always feel like they are “bragging”.

Talking about yourself and your accomplishments will help you become more “visible” and help you better market your skills and expertise. If you donâ€™t tell them, no one else is going to.

In today’s article on CIO.com called The Executive Woman’s Guide to Self-Promotion, I read that “Ambitious women sometimes have a hard time getting noticed, but marketing one’s accomplishments is a requirement for career advancement.” It is a great article on six female CIOs who offer advice to up-and-coming women in IT and explain how they learned to network without compromising themselves. For Denise Stephens, the director of Information Technology and CIO at Washington Savannah River Company, self-promotion has been difficult.

“I must consciously conquer my natural tendency to hold back when interacting in conflict situations.” Women can worryâ€”occasionally with reasonâ€”that they’ll be negatively labeled if they are assertive and speak out. “I keep this in mind but do not let it hold me back,” says Stephens, “as I have rarely seen women penalized by these labels if they get the job done.”